SHIPS THAT HAVE REAPPEARED.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 8538, 9 June 1899, Page 4

SHIPS THAT HAVE REAPPEARED.

' GIVEN UP FOR LOST, BUT THEY 1 CAME HOME AFTER ALL.

The riewest of them all is the Bulgaria, who has earned her Bafety so well by hard work. But she is only tire latest of a long list of great ships that have come to port after all hope for them had been abandoned ashore.

:'■ None of them ever had a much rougher 'V; time of itrfhan the great Umbria, an ;2:v Atlantic liner with 120 passengers aboard. •Vf^She^sailed from New York some years cX"sg\) 'for: Southampton in the teeth of the gales, and . had a stiff passage ',S;^t as fsr as' the edge ofthe Newfoundland •■■;'Bapk?. ; Hera, it was found that a dan- ;! Jgerous. crack avos spreading in the screw '.'aVßhaft. 'Tlie machinery was thus rendered

!y ' ; poi.',Ojijys. useless; • but dangerous, for a viS'BonPifc^hMt'! suddenly breaking ' is apt to §^ripra:hoie in the ship's bottom. SS&Th^n the ITmbria had nothing to do but ;^jr4rif t.', anSI wallow' in - the trough of the which is not a safe or :£&?6omfof£abld ■( occupation. After drifting ;| r |f9ri;l2: hours she sighted a Bhip called the jliißphemiaitwhichgot a cable on board the !y*lMj)less'Ujpbria and -towed her about 75 V. miles' through a hop ting gale in the direcll^ition^qf New York. end of this distance the tow-rope •':^pbrpke— the crew of the Umbria, when they i|i; jiauletl ;in , the, end, declared it bad been !^pfe-Md'the'svo vessels lost sight of each vth_e;'Btorm. The Bohemia re.!|'*;jpoM|dHthe?condition; of the liner, and Mlpipple^begmiito aliake' their heads. Tugs fliiwemsent out in search, and thousands of *i>p()undß verb spent in extra insurance at a .:■ '■•'■ ■ : ■ i .Umbria idnfted around for three to start her propellor ; but :££ifc;caine>^,aM;.t,he liner, began to leak. ; f|j^i3'wi9awkw^rd;^ They bad parted from |^t^'||gte'qf]s./bni;Chriß*t'ii)tw' Eve ; but' on Mjthgf^r^^ayitKeyiell in i with a small !^#St«!anief^which begged; them" to 'excuse it enough coal. p^vThe^'ftsseiigers Bpirits began to, sink ; but ; staff worked hard. Then Gallia. The Umbria for help phut the Gallia replied carrying mails, and could not SfSeiigajie^in' the.; towing;, business on such |>SJBh'qi;t;'nbtice,' \yhich is quite right, and ffifHwithin-th'e law and custom. '

On .shore, the bad reports and the fear- '■, Ju\,weather had caused nearly .all hope in *\ the (1 JJmbrja's safety to vanish. So they ' t ',were all very surprised when the supposed % sunken liner steamed quietly into New ( York, for the engineers managed to tinker v up the engines sufficiently to get way on . the ship. The grateful passengers collected £100 as a testimonial to the engineers, and * rejoioings were complete. \ 1 The unfortunate Bourgoyne, which was . run'dowti and sunk last year, once sailed gaily home after being abandoned for lost. She, too, lose her propellor in mid- Atlantic, and was hovo from wave top to wave top, „ the water gaining inside her all the time ," for,nearly 12 days, The seas made dean ■> breaches over her, and swept all the boats ' (way. One of the great smokestacks , went, too, and it takes more than a ripple to sweep away a liner's smoke-stack. However, doggedness did it, and at last, after one or two further attempts at towing on the part of small steamers, a tug stumbled aoross the mislaid liner and towed her cheerfully into harbor, to the great relief of the friends and relatives of her 150 passengers. When a ship is posted at Lloyd's as overdue, her insurance premiums go up with a run. Very often thn owners like to insure for still more, in view of the possibility that their vessel is lost, and, of course, they have to pay 'Vthrough the nose" for Bitch heavy risk. They have to go to the underwriters and lake the best terms they can, for the insurance agency has them under its thumb. The premium may go up from 4 or 5 per cent to 25 or 30, and if the ship comes home safely after all, the underwriters make a splendid haul. There is more joy at Lloyd's over one returned ship reported lost than over 20 new premiums. The Umbria's and the Bulgaria's premiums ran into many thousands sterling, and naturally the underwriters chuckled. Then there was the great German steamer Altmarkt, which sailed from the Elbe ft few years ago with a cargo of wheat and 100 passengers. She was bound for Ijiew York, but her engines broke down, and some unknown Bailing vessel of small size managed to butt into her in the dark, and then vanished. It seemed that the sailing vessel sank, and nobody appeared to he sure about it. Anyhow, nn uncomfortable dent was made in the Altmarlct's bow, and.slie began to accumulate more salt water than the pumps could keep under. Then, as the vessel labored in the trough of the seas, her cargo shifted, as it is opt to do in such vases, and the big steamer took an awkward "list" over to one side. The passengers did not turn nut to be much use in the dilemma, but the crow worked hard at the grain, and got it partly back in place apain. Then the ship began to settle by the stern, and the end seemed near. An Atlantic mnilboat turned up opportunely, and tho passengers and crew were taken over to her piecemeal. A nmilboat can stop to save life at sea, but she is not allowed to take a ship in tow, nnd, anyhow the Altmarkt seemed at her last gasp. Most of the passengers nnd crew were put aboard the liner, when the two available boatß were smashed against the liner's side, and the two ships -lost each other in a violent storm. On board the German boat ' remained the captain, first olticer, a Scotch engineer travelling to New York, three English passengers, nnd a stoker or two. The engineer got leave to tend the brokendown engines, and, with the help of the three passengers and the stokers, he managed to get them to work fairly well. Ashore the ship was all but given up fot ' lost, when tho mailboat arrived with the passengers and the nows ; the premiums leaped up, and nobody held much faith in the stricken steamer's chances. For all that, after knocking about for 15 days over her time, the vessel walked into the Forth aud perched herself on a sandbank. However the tugs and pilot swarmed out, like vultures round a corpse, and at high water the Altmarkt was comfortably floated off and brought into dock. The affair caused a great sensation, for the ship's condition had been even more hopeless, to all appearances, than that of the Bulgaria in her late troubles. Medals and testimonials were flying around like hail, and the plucky little handful of men who had «aved the ship had a good time. ' .

Sailing ships, of course, not being so regular in their arrival as 6teamers, are often overdue, and a delay of a week or bo in their passages gives scarcely a ground for comment. Sometimes they make a record, however, and the lato Maggie Carver, a clipper barque, once got dismasted in a squall and drifted round the South Atlantic for three months. Her crew got through all the provisions, although the water, with a very scant allowance, held out, and they were reduced to a diet of coir rope boiled in salt water, which, though it will sustain life for some time, is not a palatable nor a nourishing article of food. Coir rope is made from cocoa fibre, and contains a small amount of nutriment.

The end of it was that the Maggie Carver drifted into Rio Plata a long time after she had been given up for lost.